


After the Rain

by thedevilchicken



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Feelings Realization, M/M, Mission Fic, Redemption, Ritual Public Sex, Telepathy, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-04-06 01:13:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19052257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: After his death, Anakin decides to use the Force to travel into the past and keep Obi-Wan alive. He goes back a little further than expected, to the day of a cancelled diplomatic mission in the middle of the Clone Wars. This time, Anakin decides to see that mission through.





	After the Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yujacheong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yujacheong/gifts).



"Anakin?"

He was on the ground. He'd fallen. No, no - he'd passed out and _then_ he'd fallen, and Obi-Wan was standing over him. Or Obi-Wan was kneeling next to him as he lay there sprawling on the deckplates of a ship in flight. In hyperspace, heading who knew where. This wasn't how he'd planned it at all.

Obi-Wan had one hand planted firmly in the center of Anakin's chest like maybe he'd be able to feel what was wrong with him in the Force. Maybe he could, because who ever truly knew what Obi-Wan was capable of at any given moment, but Anakin really, really hoped that wasn't true. He would've been surprised by what he found in him then, and probably not pleasantly. _Definitely_ not pleasantly.

When he opened his eyes, nothing was the way he'd planned it. He was meant to be on the Death Star. He'd pictured in it in his mind's eye just the way it had been that day, or at least the way he remembered it, all featureless corridors marked numerically at the junctions so the Imperial workforce wouldn't get lost on the way between the hangar bay and the comms center and end up at the trash compactors. That had still happened frequently, but it wasn't because they hadn't tried.

He groaned. He definitely wasn't on the Death Star. This wasn't the plan.

"Anakin, if it's not too much of an imposition, could you please explain what you're doing on the floor?" Obi-Wan said. "Words that aren't _argh_ would be appreciated." Maybe the actual content of what he said wasn't the dizzying height of compassion but his tone said he was worried. The frown on his face said he was worried, too. He'd never liked to show it, but it had always been there. 

Anakin closed his eyes again and slapped one hand down over his face with an audible thwack. He should have expected that things wouldn't go to plan because when had they ever gone to plan where Obi-Wan Kenobi was concerned? Anakin knew where he was and he wasn't meant to be there because he'd been meant to wake up on the Death Star in the hours immediately preceding Obi-Wan's arrival. He wasn't meant to be on a Republic transport ship heading toward the Outer Rim. He was about twenty years too early.

But the hand against his face was flesh and blood over bone and not servos and couplings under a thick leather glove. When he moved his feet, he could feel his toes shift and press down against the soles of his boots. He wasn't wearing a mask and for a moment he wasn't sure if he was going to laugh or cry or hyperventilate or try to do all three things at the exact same time. Not long ago, he'd had no body at all. Not long before that, he'd been missing all four limbs, or at least missing large parts of them. He had three of them now, as solid and real as they'd ever been.

"Anakin?" Obi-Wan said. "Are you well?" 

He gripped him by his shoulders just a little too tightly and Anakin, finally, reopened his eyes and looked at him. He knew exactly what he'd see, though what he saw absolutely wasn't what he'd intended; Obi-Wan was meant to be old and worn and gray like he'd been the day he'd died, but he wasn't. He was younger, and definitely _not_ gray, with his neat hair in a side parting though it hung forward as he leaned down over him. He guessed his eyes must have been the same bright blue when he'd last seen him alive but without the mask, even they looked different. Everything did.

"I'm fine," he said. "Don't fuss." He sat up with another groan and ran one hand over his hair - he had _hair_ again, that was a novelty. "Don't we have a job to do?"

"What happened?"

"Nothing. I fainted." 

"That doesn't sound like nothing, Anakin." 

"I was sparring with the padawans earlier. I might've hit my head." 

Obi-Wan raised his brows. "You were showing off for the padawans, you mean," he said. Then he rocked back on his heels and he pushed up to standing, and he grimaced to unsuccessfully hide an amused, affectionate smile as he held out one hand to him. Anakin clasped Obi-Wan by the wrist and let him pull him up - with judicious application of the Force, it was easy enough for him to bring him to his feet without much effort at all. In the mask and the cape and all the parts that had never really felt like they'd belonged to him, he'd been so much taller that Obi-Wan had seemed diminished; his death had been more disappointment than triumph, like he'd witnessed the sad end of something that had once been brilliant. Right there and then, his master seemed like his old self again. 

Anakin remembered this happening almost exactly the same way a long time ago, and Obi-Wan had insisted they turn the ship around and take him back to the Temple for a thorough medical evaluation, even though Anakin had tried to insist he was fine. Maybe he shouldn't have been quite so smug when it had turned out he'd been more or less right: it wasn't even the crash to the ground in the training hall before take-off that had done it, he'd just been sleep-deprived and dehydrated. 

"We should get you to a med droid, Anakin," Obi-Wan said, just like he'd known he would. "We haven't been gone for long and the mission isn't so important we should risk your health. I can take someone else." 

Not long before then, Anakin had died. He remembered how it had felt to slip away into the Force, surrounded by his failures and transgressions one instant and surrounded by _everything_ the next. And he'd thought, as he'd floated there formless in the stuff that bound the universe, that if the Force bound space and time and matter, if the Force was in everything, if the Force _was_ everything, then maybe he could take his chance and do things differently. Surely he wouldn't be able to do it if he wasn't meant to.

He'd aimed for the hours immediately before Obi-Wan's death and he'd overshot by decades. He'd only meant to go back and change a short time, just enough that Obi-Wan wouldn't have to die, but now he was there early, knowing there was no way back, _everything_ would change. The only question was how.

Anakin still had his fingers around Obi-Wan's wrist as they stood there in the corridor. Last time, he'd let go and he'd argued the point, and eventually he'd lost. This time, it should have ended then and there: Anakin knew for one bright moment of perfect, crystal clarity that if he just pushed himself into the Force and left a pile of clothes there on the deck, like Obi-Wan had on the Death Star, that would end it all. The Republic would have a chance against the Empire because Darth Vader would never exist to steal that chance from them. 

"I'll have the pilot turn around," Obi-Wan said. 

Anakin still had his fingers around Obi-Wan's wrist, skin on skin just underneath his sleeve. Last time, he'd let go and argued; this time, he held on just a fraction tighter, and he stepped in just a fraction closer. 

"Don't," he replied. He shook his head. " _Don't_." 

Obi-Wan frowned and quickly let go of his arm. He narrowed his eyes like he questioned Anakin's intent. But what he didn't do was order the ship to turn back for Coruscant. 

The mission they'd aborted once would go ahead as planned. 

\---

He knew what the mission was. 

Lying on his bunk an hour later, sipping water as he tried to give his body the rest he knew it needed, he could remember most of the briefing they'd attended in the council chamber. He'd stood there awkwardly at Obi-Wan's side with his hands tucked in behind his back so he wouldn't be tempted to play with his lightsaber and put scorch marks in yet another cloak. He'd tried to look engaged and he tried to look interested and he tried to listen as Master Windu explained the importance of Korelan's vast natural resources to the ongoing smooth functioning of the Republic. The problem was, he'd always preferred fighting to diplomacy. Sometimes, though he'd never admitted it, he'd suspected Obi-Wan had felt the same. 

Sending envoys to secure the people of Korelan's ongoing assistance was of the most vital importance, Master Windu said, but the reclusive Korelani had repeatedly refused to accept a delegation from the Senate; they'd already turned down overtures from Senators Mothma and Organa. They would only accept Jedi, and apparently they'd asked for Obi-Wan by name.

Then Master Windu had asked, "You remember Korelan law, Master Kenobi?" and Obi-Wan had nodded gravely. Suddenly, Anakin's interest had been piqued, but then the briefing ended. Anakin left - he'd never been able to leave the council chamber too quickly after briefings - but Masters Yoda and Windu motioned for Obi-Wan to stay behind. So Anakin had waited outside, pacing outside the door regretting his haste once the other council members had left. He couldn't hear what they were talking about and he supposed he didn't exactly have a right to. After all, the mission was Obi-Wan's, not his; as far as he knew, he'd only been invited so he'd know why the 212th wouldn't be heading out with the 501st as planned. 

Eventually, the doors opened and Obi-Wan appeared through them; he was flanked by Masters Yoda and Windu, though they disappeared surprisingly quickly and surprisingly quietly. Obi-Wan's jaw was set, and once they were alone he ushered Anakin back into the council room and pushed the doors closed behind them. 

"What's going on?" Anakin asked. 

Obi-Wan sighed. He had his hands clasped so tightly behind his back that his fingers were turning white and he wandered over to the window, up close to the glass. Anakin wondered if it would break if he pushed against it or if he charged against it, or if he'd need to use his lightsaber. They'd been stuck on Coruscant for longer then than they had been in the whole of the two years prior to that, and helping to train the younglings and other masters' padawans really wasn't fulfilling his urge for a satisfying fight. Not that shattering a window would have helped. Much. 

"Do you remember what I told you about when Qui-Gon and I went to Korelan?" Obi-Wan asked, with his back still turned. 

"Well, you told a lot of stories..." Anakin replied. "Should I?"

"Their entire political system is structured around the concept of the mated pair."

Anakin frowned. He _did_ remember, at least part of it. 

"The time Qui-Gon told them you weren't aware of their laws and he wasn't permitted to... uh, that you were his padawan learner? _That_ Korelan?"

Obi-Wan glanced at him over his shoulder. He shifted his hands awkwardly behind his back, swapping his white-knuckled grip, then looked away again, out over Coruscant. 

"Yes," he said. "That Korelan." He rolled his head, stretching his neck. He looked tense. "The Republic needs their help. They will only receive Jedi. They will only receive a _pair_ of Jedi."

"Can't you take me and we'll tell them I'm your padawan?"

"You're not. You haven't been for quite some time."

"Can't you take Ahsoka and say she's _a_ padawan?"

Obi-Wan sighed. "Even if I felt comfortable stretching the truth, it only worked for me and Qui-Gon because we were legitimately unaware of the Korelani customs when we arrived," he said. "This time, they know very well that I know what to expect. It won't work again - even if you were still my padawan, their laws are very clear on this point. They would simply turn us away if we refused to follow their customs, and we can't allow that to happen." 

He released his hands' death grip one on the other and leaned forward against the window in front of him instead, fingers spread wide. He apparently thought better of leaning on a window of dubious tensile strength rather quickly and turned to him instead of that. Finally, he raised his gaze from the floor and looked at him. 

He hadn't seen his old master so tense in years. He'd seen him have battles more relaxed than that conversation. He'd seen him more relaxed while seconds away from almost certain death, though he guessed it had always turned out _almost certain_ was more _almost_ than _certain_.

"This isn't an order, Anakin," Obi-Wan said. He laced his fingers together mid-chest and squeezed till his hands were almost shaking. "The Korelani asked for me, but the council hasn't asked for you specifically. I can find someone else." 

That was the moment he'd understood exactly why Obi-Wan had been telling him this story. It wasn't some kind of a cautionary tale and he wasn't looking for commiseration and Anakin felt something twist sharply down deep in his gut as he realized: Obi-Wan was asking him to go with him to Korelan. Anakin knew what that would mean.

"Maybe we can fool them," he said.

"There is no fooling them, Anakin. They will insist on..." He paused. He winced. "They will insist on seeing us together. It's part of the ritual required for negotiations to take place." 

Anakin's brows rose. "You do know that's against the code, right?" 

Obi-Wan smiled wryly. "The council has granted a special dispensation in this case," he replied. 

"For you and me?"

"For me and the partner of my choosing." 

"And you're choosing me." 

"I'm asking you, yes." He paused. They both paused. They looked at each other, standing there together in the empty council chamber. Later, what he remembered most was the awkward look on Obi-Wan's face that said he'd have done anything for the Republic, but maybe also said he'd have rather not be asked for that. That was what he remembered most later, but at that moment what seemed more important than anything was the fact that Obi-Wan had had a choice. And so had he. Obi-Wan had chosen to ask him and Anakin had chosen to say yes. 

Of course, then Anakin had passed out in the middle of a corridor on the way to Korelan and Obi-Wan had insisted they make a detour back to the Temple and by the time Anakin had been pronounced fit, the Separatists had blockaded Korelan. They'd never actually made it there and not quite nine weeks later, the planet had fallen into Dooku's hands. 

Anakin figured if he was going to change the past, why not start right there.

\---

It was raining when they arrived on Korelan. 

It rained most of the time on Korelan, Obi-Wan told him, making small talk as they stepped off the ship and walked down the gangway under a pair of large, plasma-canopied umbrellas that glowed everywhere a raindrop hit them. The looked like Gungan shields held up over their heads, Anakin thought, though then again maybe his memory was hazy; he hadn't been back to Naboo for twenty years. At least in the future, in his present, he hadn't.

Anakin wasn't sure about the place at all. He'd spent the rest of the journey there reacclimating to his old body rather than reading the mission briefing notes the Temple analysts had sent with them and he'd never had the chance to read them the first time around, so there was a non-zero chance he was missing something extremely important, but he'd needed the time. Not only had he spent two decades living between a claustrophobic black suit and a large tank of bacta, but he really was sleep-deprived and mildly dehydrated. At least the dehydration he could do something about while rubbing his newly re-fleshed limbs to try to make his decades-older, technically dead consciousness understand they were really real. At least his decades-younger, definitely alive brain still only had the memory of one height and one synthetic limb, though, so mercifully the sensation of his arms and legs being inches too short only lasted a few hours. Still, it was a very strange time.

The too-short sensation was gone by the time they arrived but he couldn't shake the feeling he was missing something. The rain seemed like it never eased and no one there seemed particularly irritated by it; they were all carrying the same plasma-canopied umbrellas and wearing the same flat, rubber-soled boots and all the streets they walked down - they seemed _very_ attached to walking as a form of transportation - were paved in some kind of hardwearing, grippy substance all run through with furrows to help the water run off of it. As they walked, though, thirty minutes turning into forty-five trudging through the rainy streets, he had to admit the constant deluge at least seemed to keep the place clean. 

They were led into a tall, angular building worked with miles of elaborate guttering and out of the rain. The umbrella canopies vanished like a lightsaber at the push of a button, with a spectacular puff of all the raindrops that had been clinging to them - Anakin didn't quite manage not to spray Obi-Wan straight down the front of his cloak with his, much to Obi-Wan's frowning displeasure. The handles drew down to the size of a lightsaber with its blade turned out after that - their Korelani escorts all clipped them to their belts, just like lightsabers, so Obi-Wan and Anakin did the same. He hadn't quite got around to igniting his lightsaber since his arrival from the future and he hoped that if and when the time came, he didn't accidentally whip out an umbrella instead. 

Then a discreet set of panels around the door hummed into life and for a horrible moment, Anakin felt disturbingly like he'd just been dessicated. Then a discreet set of grilles above and to the side them gave a totally unexpected puff and in a really disconcerting second, they were completely dry from the rain but also appropriately rehydrated. Anakin supposed that if they'd lived in the rain for thousands of years they'd have had to come up with ways to make it seem less miserable, too, and not ruin all their nice floors, but warning would have been nice; he hadn't had hair for two decades and now he had again, the Korelani dryers had turned it to fluff that he tried to rake back down into place. Meanwhile, Obi-wan mysteriously didn't have a hair out of place. For not the first time in his life, Anakin asked himself if he was using the Force in place of hair product. 

"Master Kenobi." A tall, extremely thin, extremely pale Korelani man stepped down the stairs in front of them. He would have looked like a wisp of insubstantial nothing if it hadn't been for his tight-fitting bright blue jumpsuit, which looked mysteriously well tailored and expensive for something Anakin was more used to seeing on pilots boarding TIE fighters, albeit in not quite such an eye-catching color. In fact, all the Korelani people they'd encountered were wearing bright colors, like visiting the Temple gardens when all the flowers were in bloom. Again, he guessed they had to relieve the grim grayness of their overcast lives somehow, but that wouldn't have been the way he'd have chosen.

"Councillor Kiran," Obi-Wan replied. He bowed. "It's been a very long time. Thank you for receiving us." 

"I wish it could be under more pleasant circumstances," Kiran replied, then he looked at Anakin. "Will you introduce us?"

"Ah, yes." Obi-Wan cleared his throat awkwardly. "Councillor, my former padawan, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker." 

Kiran's brow furrowed slightly. "Master Kenobi, I do hope you don't intend to use the same excuse to circumvent our laws that Master Jinn did on your last visit."

"Not at all, councillor," Obi-Wan replied. "Anakin and I have come here fully prepared to abide by Korelani law." 

Kiran smiled and said, "I'm very pleased to hear that," and Obi-Wan gave a small, polite incline of his head in return, but Anakin couldn't help but feel like personally he'd have preferred to put his lightsaber through the man's chest instead of exchanging pleasantries. Not so long ago, back in the future he wasn't sure could ever happen now he'd come back into the past though technically both were still his present, he might have done exactly that and had done with it. Of course, not so long ago, Darth Vader would have arrived complete with the Imperial fleet instead of it being Anakin Skywalker, and Obi-Wan Kenobi would have already been dead. 

Taking Korelan's resources would have been a lot more straightforward than bargaining for them. Taking Korelan's resources, even using the Grand Army of the Republic instead of his stormtroopers and TIE fighters, would have been a lot more straightforward, too, if he hadn't apparently grown a certain amount of concern for what Obi-Wan would think of him. _This_ Obi-Wan hadn't lived to see his fall to the Dark Side, at least not yet. This Obi-Wan had had no idea at all that it was coming. This Obi-Wan had no idea that the Anakin Skywalker at his side had fallen already, and was still desperately trying to claw his way back up.

"You should rest before we begin," Kiran said. "I'll have my second show you to your room." 

He gestured vaguely with one elegant, almost paperwhite hand, and another Korelani man entered the room. Kiran was already taller than either Obi-Wan or Anakin; the new one was even taller and even paler with eyes so dark they almost looked black, but he was also at least three times as bulky even if his gray jumpsuit made him fade into the background kind of like a human raincloud. 

"We'll send for you when it's time," Kiran said, and Obi-Wan bowed again so Anakin bowed, too, even if his heart really wasn't in it. Then they followed Kiran's second whose name he hadn't given them. 

He took them up the rather grand stone staircase in the entryway and then up a second staircase further back and then up a third staircase, wide but winding in a large square stairwell. All the walls and floors and ceilings seemed to be made of a kind of dense charcoal-gray stone that had been highly polished in some places and left rough in others, just like all the other buildings they'd passed had been, like the whole city had been planned out in advance and then carved down into the bedrock - maybe it had, but Anakin hadn't read the briefing. And, at the top, under the vaulted stone eaves, they turned into a corridor and Kiran's keyed in a code to open up the plasma door that let them into their room. 

"Did you see the code?" Kiran's second asked as he stood back. 

"Yes, thank you," Obi-Wan replied, and Kiran's second gave a satisfied nod before turning away and heading back the way he'd come. Obi-Wan went inside. Anakin followed and hit the button on the inside wall to close the door behind them.

"Are they always like that?" Anakin asked. 

Obi-Wan removed his cloak and folded it over the back of a tall, elegant chair carved like vines around a tree, then turned back to him. "Are who always like what?" he replied. 

Anakin gestured at the closed door, which currently looked a lot like an extension of the dark gray stone wall at either side of it, except for a faint shimmer here and there as the fields oscillated. "Them. Like that." 

"If you mean the seconds, yes." He sat down. "Didn't you read the briefing?"

"Well, I started to, but I was resting. You told me to rest." 

Obi-Wan sighed. He sat and leaned back on the chair. "Yes, Anakin, they're always like that," he said. "It's their responsibility." 

"Do you expect me to act like that while we're here?"

Obi-Wan's mouth twisted wryly. "The Korelani probably do, yes," he replied. "I, on the other hand, would be extremely surprised if you did." He rubbed his knees with both hands. "Get some more rest, Anakin. You still don't look well, and I expect we'll need our strength."

Anakin knew that once upon a time, he would have argued that he didn't need rest. If they'd come there before instead of returning to the Temple, he probably would have argued they should take a look around and get to know their surroundings in case anything didn't go quite to plan, but the fact was he knew he really did need rest. So he tossed his cloak onto the carved wooden desk by the rainswept window and unbuckled his belt and took off his tunic and he lay down, albeit with his boots still on and his lightsaber still close at hand. He'd at least be somewhat prepared if he needed to be.

Obi-Wan raised his brows in faint surprise that he'd actually done has he'd suggested, but he said nothing. And, as Anakin closed his eyes, he didn't ask what exactly Obi-Wan thought they'd need their strength for.

\---

Not quite three hours later, Kiran's second came to find them and take them down to a light dinner with the council. They sat around the huge stone table in their pairs, first then second, first then second, Obi-Wan then Anakin. He almost didn't mind being called his _second_ ; frankly, he was still mostly just relieved to see him alive. 

Anakin couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten with people, since nutrition in his sorry state post-Mustafar hadn't exactly been the stuff of Imperial dinner parties. He didn't eat much at the Korelani dinner because it still felt strange. Obi-Wan seemed to eat just as little, though probably for quite another reason. He seemed oddly focused on the room's decoration - the stone walls were all carved with trees and leafy vines, like the table's legs and the chair up in their room, and there was another set of doors at the far side, tall and heavy and carved in exactly the same way. It clearly meant something, but Anakin didn't know what.

Anakin hadn't spent much time thinking about it but he did know what the mission was, at least in its rough details, and what it was likely to require from them. He remembered how he'd thought about it at the time, too, in his quarters in the Temple the night before they'd left. He remembered the pressure of his heels against the mattress as he'd lain there, tense, and the weight of his blanket pressing the fabric of his pajama pants down against his unexpected erection. He took two handfuls of the sheet beneath him, his synthetic hand close to tearing it, his flesh-and-blood hand starting to ache at the fingertips and knuckles. He remembered trying to will it to pass because although it wasn't like he'd never thought of Obi-Wan that way, he'd really never thought about having sex with him in front of a planetary council in the Outer Rim to somehow prove the Jedi were trustworthy. That wasn't meant to be a turn-on. But, in the end, he'd given in and touched himself. He usually had.

After dinner, Kiran and his second led the way into the council chamber. It was a strange room, down a long, straight, utterly windowless staircase that seemed to descend into the dark almost as deep as the tower was high. There were narrow striplights built into a similarly narrow groove on the wall at each side of the staircase, whiter than their lightsabers but still tinged with blue, but the light they shed wasn't bright, not bright enough to see their destination, just bright enough to lead them down without disastrous missteps. The air felt closer with every step, heavier and colder, and when they came to the bottom Anakin could see why: all the rainwater falling on the council building and swirling through all its miles of stone gutters and was funnelled down here, pouring through an opening in the high stone ceiling and splashing down into a rocky pool. 

Around the pool, climbing the walls, covering the floors, there were long, thick vines that seemed to glow faintly from inside, underneath their skin. Kiran gestured to his second and he produced a knife. He cut out a section of vine from by the pool and he held it out to Obi-Wan. 

"Do you know what to do?" Kiran's second asked him. 

"Yes, thank you," Obi-Wan replied, polite as always. Anakin wasn't sure he would have been quite as polite. 

The council began to take their seats around the pool, each councillor on a tall-backed seat carved straight into the stone and their seconds a pace or two in front of them, lower, on a stone-carved stool. As they sat, Obi-Wan started to remove his clothes. When he gave Anakin a hard look that said _you really should have read the briefing_ , he started to undress, too. There was a stone table for them to leave their clothing and their lightsabers on, not that Anakin wanted to be far from his. Then Obi-Wan took the vine and stepped down into the pool. Anakin followed. 

The water was freezing. The chill bit down into Anakin's skin immediately and made him shiver and come up in gooseflesh, but he followed Obi-Wan deeper, toward the waterfall that poured in from above. Obi-Wan used his fingers to pull open the section of vine he'd been given and Anakin watched him lick the strange luminescent gel from the inside of it. He tossed the vine husk aside and then waded deeper, right up to the shower of rainwater that poured in from above; he stepped underneath it, briefly, soaking himself through, and when he stepped back he motioned for Anakin to do the same. The water hit him hard, almost bruisingly, as it soaked his hair and made him shiver again. And then Obi-Wan took his wrists in his hands just underneath the surface of the water, and he stepped in close. 

He shouldn't have been surprised when Obi-Wan kissed him, but he was - after all, he really hadn't read the briefing. He tasted like whatever the stuff was inside the vine, sweet and sharp and cold, but then suddenly the taste in Anakin's mouth, on Obi-Wan's tongue, was bright and hot and iron. When he pulled away, he understood; there was a smear of red across Obi-Wan's chin, through his beard, and he knew what he'd tasted was his blood. He'd bitten the inside of his own cheek to mix his blood with the vine gel and suddenly, overwhelmingly, all Anakin wanted was to kiss him again, and to taste it again, get his hands into his fucking perfect hair and make him want it, too. But Obi-Wan stepped back further. 

"It's done," Obi-Wan said, loudly enough that the others could hear over the roar of the waterfall. 

Kiran was standing by the pool, now in a much more somber gray robe than his almost luminous blue jumpsuit, and Obi-Wan was clearly addressing him, but he was looking straight at Anakin. His usually neat hair was soaked and raked back from his face and his beard was still dripping rainwater mixed with his blood onto his bare chest, and he was trembling slightly but it wasn't from the cold, or at least not just from it. Anakin knew that. he _knew_ it, bright and clear, inside his head, in every fiber of him. Obi-Wan was shaking because of what he'd just ingested from inside the weird glowing vine and from the water swirling all around them and the blood that Anakin could still taste at the back of his tongue, but he didn't know precisely what it was so Anakin didn't know, either. What he knew was that Obi-Wan felt like his blood was about to boil despite the freezing water. What he knew was that Obi-Wan, in the Force, was aware of everyone and everything in the room in a way that Anakin had never been in his entire life. And, like punch straight to his gut, what he knew was that Obi-Wan would have rather had any of the council members gathered there than go to bed with Anakin. 

"What's happening?" Anakin asked. 

"Oh, Anakin," Obi-Wan replied, looking rather pale. "You really didn't read the briefing, did you." 

Then he promptly passed out. 

\---

Back in their room, Anakin finally read the briefing. 

He'd carried Obi-Wan back up all the stairs to their room under the eaves with Kiran's second trailing behind them, carrying their clothes gathered up in his arms. One of Obi-Wan's boots kept slipping off the pile and the loud bump against the flagstones made Anakin start every time, but Obi-Wan barely stirred. The council had assured him that the immediate effects wouldn't last for very long, but Anakin didn't feel particularly inclined to believe a word they said, given that their laws had just bullied Obi-Wan into poisoning himself. At least the dose he'd gotten himself when Obi-Wan had kissed him hadn't been enough to knock him off his feet again, so he didn't faint like he had on the ship. He actually felt remarkably well, all things considered. 

He found out why when he read the briefing. The Korelani rainwater he'd just been standing in chest-deep was one of the resources they'd come to bargain for; it had well-documented medicinal properties that seemed to be even more effective in the physiology of the Republic's army of clone troopers. He skimmed the science - he might find it interesting later but for the moment what he needed was the upshot. What he read said the average life expectancy for humans on Korelan was at least three times that experienced anywhere else in the known galaxy. Councillor Kiran was nearly two hundred years old, though he didn't look a day over forty. And there were other things native to Korelan, too, like the vines down in the council room. They had effects that were seemingly inexplicable, except that the planet was unusually strong in the Force. Anakin guessed he'd felt that. 

He should've read the briefing before they'd gone down there. Maybe Obi-Wan had assumed he'd remembered what he'd told him all those years earlier about the time that he and Qui-Gon had been there, but he'd probably been tinkering with his lightsaber or practicing his djem so or something equally ignorant at the time. Maybe Obi-Wan thought he'd been exaggerating when he'd said he hadn't read the briefing, though that had always been one thing he'd found easy to believe about him. But if he'd read it, he would've known that the sex he'd expected was the easy part; there was a reason he'd asked Anakin first and no one else. 

He knew society on Korelan was structured around the concept of the mated pair; what he didn't know was what _mated_ meant to them, or why they trusted mated pairs so implicitly. A mix of rainwater and blood rich in midichlorians was all the plasmatic gel from the vines needed to bridge one mind to another in the Force. To bridge _his_ mind to _Obi-Wan's_ , like one was an extension of the other. The only small mercy Anakin could find to be thankful for in the whole mess was that it didn't bring Obi-Wan into his head - it just gave Anakin nearly unfettered access the other way. At least he knew then why it had had to be Jedi who came.

When Obi-Wan woke, he knew it immediately. When Obi-Wan dressed, he could practically feel his clothing move against his own skin. They ate together in the pseudo-silence of the incessant rain against the windows, but all the while Anakin could hear him and feel him and taste him inside his own already jumbled-up head. Anakin had never really enjoyed fish but he could taste how Obi-Wan tasted it, and it was different somehow, better. When he closed his eyes, he could almost see what Obi-Wan saw and hear what he heard - he could see himself how Obi-Wan saw him, certain colors maybe slightly altered by his different biological sense of perception but there was nothing surprising there, except vaguely the fact he didn't still see Darth Vader. But there were things in him that he couldn't see as his consciousness floated through Obi-Wan's, spaces that were closed off to him. He knew Obi-Wan better than anyone else did in the Jedi Order, but Obi-Wan still had secrets. Maybe that was for the best, but he couldn't help but hate that even now, Obi-Wan was hiding from him. 

They spent the day like that, waiting. Obi-Wan left the room to speak to Kiran and Anakin left to walk in the grounds, but underneath his plasma-canopied umbrella - he'd activated the right one, at least - he could hear every word of their conversation. They agreed the timing of the negotiations, and they made polite small talk about the council building's architecture, and Anakin, jealously, could feel the tiny hints of Obi-Wan's appreciation for Councillor Kiran's appearance that Obi-Wan himself probably didn't even know he was feeling. Anakin wasn't tall and pale and wispy; even as Vader he hadn't been as tall. He had scars and a missing hand and Kiran's skin was perfect, and he almost felt like petulantly telling him to ask Kiran to be his second instead of him. Maybe he was strong in the Force but he'd never been a particularly good Jedi.

Anakin walked. He wandered through the building and then changed his mind about the maze of corridors and went outside into the carved stone courtyard, through which a network of gutters flower, and at the center of which was a waist-high fence around the rocky fissure into which all the rainwater disappeared. He stood by it, one hand on the rubber-coated metal fencing and the other holding his glowing umbrella. It was different now, having his body back, no need for a respirator, and he deactivated his umbrella to feel the rain on his skin, on his upturned face and his one wide-spread hand, his neck, before he went back inside. Obi-Wan looked at him and frowned and dusted uselessly at the water on his tunic with the back of one hand, but Anakin could feel it was more out of concern than disapproval; he was still worried about his fainting spell back on board the transport ship, though Korelan's strange rainwater had already more than cured that. But whenever his train of thought ran deeper into Obi-Wan's open mind, he hit against that closed part again. 

The vine gel mixed with Obi-Wan's blood had bonded them together, albeit temporarily unless they decided to top up every now and then, and Obi-Wan had expected that to happen - maybe he'd steeled himself to hide parts from him before they'd even left Coruscant. Force-bonding was Korelani tradition, and governed all meetings with their council. And when they went back down into the council room below, and when they took their seats around the pool, it made sense; the seconds did the speaking, while the primaries passed them their thoughts. It was meant to be a kind of failsafe and though Anakin could see how it could be abused, he supposed it made a certain kind of sense. 

The only issue was, proceedings opened somewhat differently to how Anakin had imagined, though he supposed he could have looked into Obi-Wan's memories to see what was in store. In the chamber's low light, Korelan's nine ruling councillors began to undress, and in Obi-Wan's thoughts he knew why - Obi-Wan remembered his previous visit, sitting there awkwardly with Qui-Gon as the councillors all stripped naked for ritual sex. Obi-Wan could remember how hot his cheeks had been and how he'd tried to look anywhere but at the councillors; he'd tried staring at the vine-covered walls and the shower of rainwater drumming in from above, and the grooves in the stone floor that let any stray water run back into the pool. He'd stared at the back of Qui-Gon's head, since Qui-Gon had sat down in the second's seat below him so he'd be the one permitted to speak. But he'd still ended up staring at Kiran. 

In Obi-Wan's memory, Kiran had done precisely what he was doing then: he'd pushed his second flat on his back on the chilly stone floor and straddled his hips, on his knees. He'd slicked the length of his second's cock with vine gel and then ridden him. Anakin didn't have to look over there himself to know what was happening because Obi-Wan was looking, as he started to undress. But all Anakin could think about was how Obi-Wan would still have had any of them, would have gone down on his hands and knees and let them have him, would have let them straddle his hips and ride him, if it had just meant he didn't have to do that with Anakin. 

"Why didn't you bring someone else?" he asked, hotly, under his breath, as he was stripping off his clothes. 

"You were the best choice," Obi-Wan replied. "You know me better than anyone else does. If I have to have anyone inside my head, Anakin, it really might as well be someone who knows most of what's in there already." 

"But you don't want me here." 

Obi-Wan glanced at him just for a second and then returned to removing his boots. "Well, of course I don't," he said, as if that was obvious. "Do _you_ want to be here?"

Obi-Wan didn't let him answer. He used the knife from the central table to cut out a chunk of vine and he handed it to Anakin, his cheeks red, because they both knew what he was meant to use it for. 

"Master..." Anakin said, frowning, and he felt a jab of utter dismay go straight through Obi-Wan as he abruptly turned away. 

"I'm not your master any longer, Anakin," he said. He knelt by the stone stool that seemed to grow out of the rock floor, his hands tight at its intricate, vine-patterned supports. Then he changed his mind, stood, and went up the few shallow steps to the high-backed primary's chair; he bent over from his waist, shuffled his bare feet apart, and leaned down with his hands pressed to the chair arms. When he shifted further and brought one foot up onto the seat of the chair, Anakin could feel inside him how embarrassed he was, and he understood why; the motion exposed him completely, from the puckered hole between his cheeks and down to his balls, and his thick, hard cock. Anakin felt his own cock give a jump of its own in response. When he'd imagined this, all the times he'd imagined this, it had been different. Obi-Wan had wanted it. 

He went closer. He ran his hands - one still gloved and mechanical, one bare skin - over Obi-Wan's hips and made him jump. He rested the length of his cock against the small of Obi-Wan's back. 

"Have you ever..." he said, and he didn't need to finish the question because an ocean of sights and sounds and feelings flooded into his head, just for a moment, before Obi-Wan bit them back, appalled with himself. There hadn't been others but he'd tried things by himself when he'd been younger, and he still sometimes did things then, like kneeling on his bed in his quarters in the Temple, thighs spread wide, cursing as he pushed a thick, slick transparisteel rod up inside himself. Masturbation wasn't technically forbidden, they both knew that, and it really shouldn't have surprised Anakin the way it did that he'd've liked to have seen him do that. 

"Don't just stand there," Obi-Wan said, his voice sounding high and thick and strained, not much like him at all. So Anakin pulled the vine apart and scooped the gel out from it into the palm of his glove. He dipped his bare fingers into it and rubbed it against Obi-Wan's exposed hole and he felt it pull tight under his fingertips. He felt Obi-Wan's jaw clench inside his mind. He felt Obi-Wan's chest tighten and his stomach twist. 

"They're waiting," Obi-Wan said. And they were - as Anakin glanced around the room, the councillors weren't shy about the fact they were watching them. All were in various stages of undress and engaged in various sex acts, and Kiran was watching as he rolled his hips to take his second deeper into him. So Anakin used the rest of the gel on the length of his cock and he guided the tip to Obi-Wan's waiting hole. He'd thought about this so often over the years but the reality of it was that now he could have it, now he _would_ have it, now he had to, Obi-Wan didn't want it. He stepped back. Darth Vader would have been appalled by him. 

"I can't," he said. 

It should have felt ironic, that after all those years and after all the things he'd done - all the Jedi he'd killed, all the people he'd enslaved, after _Alderaan_ \- that the step too far was this. While the councillors watched, he tried to rub the remains of the vine gel off his hands onto his hips, and he looked down at his cock all flushed and hard and glistening with the stuff, and he could see the same shine at Obi-Wan's tight opening, but he couldn't go through with it. 

"You have to," Obi-Wan said. He pulled himself up straight and turned to him. "You knew we were going to have to do this. We have obligations, Anakin. This is why we came here." 

"I can't." 

"You understand that if the Korelani give us what we're here to ask for, we could potentially save hundreds of thousands of lives?"

"I know. _I know_. I just..." Anakin raked the fingers of both hands through his hair, gel be damned. He pressed the back of his gloved hand to his mouth. He clenched and unclenched his jaw. 

"I realize I can't be the most attractive prospect you've ever had, but is it really that bad?"

Anakin laughed bitterly. "You should have brought someone else," he said. "Why did it have to be me?"

"It didn't." 

"So why me? Why not Master Secura or Master Billaba, or even Master Windu? Why _me_?"

"I told you. You know me better than they do." 

"You're lying." 

"You do. That's true." 

"Maybe it is, but that's not the reason."

"So what _is_ the reason?"

"I don't know! You won't let me see. All I know is you'd rather have sex with Count Dooku right now than with me. How do you think that makes me feel?"

"It shouldn't make you feel anything," Obi-Wan said, and the gentle Jedi tone he used just infuriated him. 

"Don't think you can make this about me. What are you not telling me?"

"I don't know--"

"Yes, you do. There's a space you won't let me into. I swear I'm not trying to look around in there any more than I have to but there's a wall and I'm slamming right into it." 

"Anakin..."

"What are you hiding?" 

"It's necessary for--"

"It's necessary that you _tell me_."

"I can't. You're--" 

"If not me then who?"

" _Anakin_..."

He took Obi-Wan by his upper arms. He squeezed, probably too tight, maybe too angry because he was always too angry, he had always been too angry, and he almost wondered if he could force him to tell him, if the strange bond was enough to lower his defences and make it possible for him to break through, or maybe just suggest he drop the barrier himself. But he didn't need to.

He knew the second it happened because what he hadn't counted on was while he'd thought that wall in Obi-Wan was just there to keep him out, it was really there to keep something in. It hit him like a fucking dam had burst, like standing underneath the bruising waterfall, and all he could do was hold tighter for a second while it raked at him inside. It was everything that Obi-Wan had ever thought about him, from meeting him on Tatooine to Qui-Gon's death and taking him in as his apprentice, all the missions they'd gone on together before he'd had his knighthood and then after that, the war, being equals, being friends. It was all his irritation and antagonism, his frequent exasperation, his pride and his conflict, his affection and his care and his worry. It was his shame and his bone-deep attraction. It was his vow-breaking attachment and his complete and utter hopelessness and how he'd wanted him to know but still somehow hoped he never would. 

The fact was Obi-Wan didn't want it to be anyone else, not really; he just didn't want Anakin to know. The fact was he didn't want him there but only because he didn't want _anyone_ to be there. But now he was, Anakin did the only thing he could do: he kissed him, hard, and dragged him down onto the floor. He had him there like that, on the ground, face to face, all flushed cheeks and Obi-Wan's eyes on his, and his legs around his waist. He could feel Obi-Wan feel it as he pushed inside him, slicked by vine gel that only seemed to make it better. He could feel Obi-Wan's arousal and the heat of his skin and every physical thing he wanted from him, everything he knew he liked from every illicit private experimentation - he did those things, and made Obi-Wan groan out loud with them. 

Maybe it didn't last long, but it had been a long time coming - Obi-Wan just didn't know how long that really was. 

\---

The council was convinced by them; it would have been difficult to not be. They allowed them to speak.

They dressed and they sat down to negotiate. Obi-Wan spoke the words he wanted to say inside Anakin's head and Anakin said them out loud; he knew this was the only time the seconds ever really spoke at any length, and they never really said their own words at all. And the negotiations didn't even take long, not long enough for all the rituals and traditions that surrounded their council meetings to have really been worth it at all, except Anakin felt maybe they'd been worth it on another level. The Korelani agreed to give them what they wanted; they agreed the Republic would protect them in exchange. They accomplished what they'd set out to, and then it was time to go home. They could have stayed another night, but they collected their things. In a lot of ways, it felt strangely anticlimactic. 

As the transport headed out of the rain toward Coruscant, Anakin could feel the effects of the vine beginning to wear off. But when Obi-Wan stood and turned to head away into his separate quarters, Anakin caught his wrist and pulled him into his instead. They were still technically on their mission; they could work the rest out later but Obi-Wan couldn't deny that _technically_ , the Jedi Council's special dispensation was still in full effect. 

"We shouldn't do this," Obi-Wan said, but his fingers had already closed two handfuls of the front of Anakin's tunic, up close to his neck. What he said and what he did and what he _felt_ were three very different things and Anakin pushed him up against the back of the locked door into his quarters. He'd been taller than Obi-Wan for years even before that point and they were so close together that Obi-Wan had to look up, but not for long; he yanked him down into a sudden kiss. The only thing Anakin wanted to do was return it but, after a moment, he pulled back. 

Obi-Wan frowned, then Anakin lifted him. He did it with the Force, easily, more easily than he'd ever have been able to as Vader because yes, he felt the Dark Side in him, but that wasn't all he felt. He was drawing from both as he held him up in the air, Obi-Wan's surprised look turning into wry amusement. As Anakin moved him across the room, he crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head at him in manufactured disappointment. Then he yelped in a very indignified manner as Anakin dropped him onto the bed. 

"I don't think that's an acknowledged use of the Force, Anakin," Obi-Wan said, as he rearranged himself to stretch out on his back, still fully clothed. 

"You did always tell me I should be creative, master," Anakin replied, deadpan but not managing innocent. 

Obi-Wan laughed. "I believe I told you to follow the Code," he replied, but then Anakin stepped up onto the bed and went down on his knees astride Obi-Wan's hips. The amusement left his face. As he paused, and then skimmed Anakin's clothed thighs with both his palms, he turned serious. His hands faltered at Anakin's belt, then he unclasped it. Anakin let him. He'd have done it himself ten times over if he'd asked him to. 

"We shouldn't do this," Obi-Wan said, but he said it as he spread open the front of Anakin's tunic so it didn't seem a particularly strong argument. 

"But here we are, doing this," Anakin replied, and he shrugged the tunic off then pulled off his undershirt to join it. Of course, he was still wearing his boots and pants and it was pretty difficult to take them off while kneeling so he stood back up to do that while Obi-Wan fumbled inelegantly with his own belt. He ended up standing, awkwardly, his face flushed red as he undressed himself, and it only seemed to occur to him once he was standing there naked in Anakin's quarters that he was, well, _naked_ , in Anakin's quarters. His eyes widened and he set his hands on his hips and he opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but in the end he just shook his head as he looked Anakin up and down. 

Anakin rummaged in his bag then pushed Obi-Wan back down and straddled his thighs. He opened the jar he'd brought with him from Korelan; there was enough of the vine gel inside for him to slick Obi-Wan's cock as his eyes went even wider. Anakin liked that. Apparently he could still surprise him. 

He could feel it as he rode him, how it felt to him and how it felt to Obi-Wan mixing up together in his head until he couldn't think straight, but he liked that, too. Not thinking felt like a mercy as he spread his hands over Obi-Wan's chest and rocked his hips to take him in deep. But then Obi-Wan moved, tipped him onto his back and pushed into him like that, over him, his muscles tense and flexing and his hair hanging down. Anakin wrapped his legs tight around Obi-Wan's waist and ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it out of place, and Obi-Wan laughed breathlessly at it. Then Anakin reached up to the headboard and pulled, muscles straining, lifting his hips a fraction higher, and Obi-Wan groaned out loud in turned-on surprise as his cock pushed in a fraction deeper. Neither of them had ever expected to have this. He knew Obi-Wan had tried not to think about him like that, and had failed in every possible way. Anakin himself had barely even tried. 

Anakin's synthetic hand pulled too tight and broke the bedpost and Obi-Wan shook his head as he laughed and pulled back out of him. He rubbed his face and he knelt there, pushing his hair back though it felt straight back into place again, and Anakin looked at him as he lay there on his back. He'd felt so betrayed that day on Mustafar, but after his death he'd finally understood the extent of his own betrayal. He remembered the look on Obi-Wan's face; he'd been blindsided by what Anakin had done, and completely devastated. Now Anakin would never have to see that again. 

Anakin went up on his knees and he turned and he leaned down against the partially broken headboard; Obi-Wan took the hint and moved up close behind him. He pushed back in, slow and deep, and when they finally came, they came like that. Obi-Wan had one hand in Anakin's hair and one hand around Anakin's cock and Anakin pushed back against him with every thrust of his hips, feeling his rhythm start to falter as he wondered, somewhere in the back of his mind, if this could have ever happened if everything else hadn't first. He wondered if Anakin could have ever done this without having been Vader first. 

When they were done, Obi-Wan rested his forehead down against Anakin's shoulder just for a minute as he caught his breath, then he pulled back out of him with a grumble. He ran his hands down Anakin's bare back, thumbs following his spine, then pressed his first two fingers almost tentatively to Anakin's slick hole. Anakin laughed breathlessly as Obi-Wan pushed his fingers in; he felt his softening cock give a tired twitch of interest that went absolutely nowhere, but the intimacy of the gesture wasn't lost on him. He could feel that the intimacy of the fact Anakin had let him do it wasn't lost on Obi-Wan, either. 

They shifted around, all knees and elbows in awkward places until they were down on the mattress on their sides, heads propped up on hands. It might have been easier not to look at each other after, considering what they'd just finished doing, but Obi-Wan brushed back Anakin's straying hair and gave him a small, self-deprecating smile. So Anakin just pushed him down onto his back and sprawled half over him, basically nuzzling his beard. Somehow, that seemed less awkward. 

"You always did know how to defuse a situation," Obi-Wan said, his voice warm with amusement. He shifted slightly - very slightly, considering how thoroughly he was pinned to the mattress - but he wasn't really trying to move. "And how to make a nuisance of yourself." 

"Well, I learned from the best," Anakin replied, and Obi-Wan hesitated just for a moment before he rested his free hand against Anakin's bare back.

The flight back to Coruscant wouldn't be long; he remembered that from a few days ago, and twenty years ago before that. Then they'd walk back into the Temple and back into what the Jedi thought their lives should be, proper and sterile and celibate. But Anakin had no intention of giving this up. And when he looked into Obi-Wan's mind one last time, as the vine's effects wore off, he could see with perfect clarity that in spite of everything, in spite of all his Jedi morals, his adherence to the Code, Obi-Wan was thinking the same thing.

He'd come from the future to change the past in the hope that he could somehow make up for the mistakes he'd made, or at least make up for one of them. Now here he was, making another one, because he hadn't had it in him to just snuff his past self out and end things. But as he pressed his mouth to Obi-Wan's jaw, as he wrapped one hand around his wrist, Obi-Wan didn't seem to mind. They'd made a lot of mistakes together, so this was just another one to add to the ever-growing list. That, or Anakin would drag him down with him. 

He hadn't been able to send himself into the Force, so maybe he still had a way to go to be the kind of person Obi-Wan had always hoped he'd be. He still wanted to live. There were so many things he wanted, and so many things he wanted to avoid. 

He hadn't been able to send himself into the Force. But as the transport sped toward Coruscant, he thought maybe they could send Palpatine instead.


End file.
